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NEWSLETTER

Death Comes to Pemberley | P.D James | Reviewed by Lucy.

Friday, 27 December 2013

Hello dear bookworms, I hope you have had a very good Christmas and are enjoying whatever time you have off. Today I'm reviewing Death Comes to Pemberley by P.D. James.

Death Comes to Pemberley is one of the sequels to Pride and Prejudice. In this story, it is six years after Elizabeth Bennett and Fitzwilliam Darcy's marriage and it starts at the evening before the annual Lady Anne's Ball at their beloved home in Pemberley. Everything seems to be running smoothly until later that night, a carriage races towards the mansion. When the carriage reaches the entrance, Elizabeth's youngest sister Lydia Wickham falls out of it and screams that her husband has been murdered.

This was the first sequel to Pride and Prejudice that I have ever read before and I have mixed thoughts about it. On the one hand there is a very good story which I think is a good follow up to the original story. At the very start there is a prologue which explains what has happened to each of the Bennett sisters since we read them last. I really liked that because some of the characters which we know and love in Pride and Prejudice do not make an appearance in this story and it's nice to know what has happened to them and why they aren't a part of this story.

However, I can agree with some of the people's reviews I've read both on Goodreads and on Amazon which mention that some of the things which the author talks about is very lengthy. I nearly stopped reading it because some of the language was hard for me to understand. There's also a lot of back story which the author has had to go through when bringing in new characters and to fill in the gaps that have occurred within the past six years since Elizabeth married the mysterious Mr Darcy. I found sometimes that it was unnecessary to add some of these bits on. The actual story was very good, but sometimes I felt the author was dwelling too much on the back story and going into a lot of detail instead of focusing on telling this story.

Even though some parts were lengthy and slow paced, I was still intrigued to find out what happened at the end and it was worth it. However I don't think it is a book which I will be reading again. I think this book deserves a three star rating.

If you are living in the UK (not sure about other parts of the world) there is actually a TV version of Death Comes to Pemberley which is being shown throughout this week. The first episode was aired last night and while it is very good, some bits from the book have been changed and that is something I'm not very keen on at all.

Happy reading chums!

This book was reviewed by regular reviewer Lucy. For more information, please click here!